Duck! Duck!

March has been a long long longggg month.

The ex-boss has been current-bossing around since the first of March. He has made compulsory to all in his department and mine to attend 50 lectures on biotech. He will be the lecturer. The lectures are spread over 25 to 30 weeks. Each lecture is 1 to 2 hours long. After each lecture there will be a test. And after completion of 50 classes there will be an exam. Now, 50 lectures are equivalent to a 3-credit hour subject in a semester. Oh, have I mentioned that there will be practical classes as well? We are all now undergrads again! I am now having nightmares about study groups, CGPA, hostel food and co-curricular activities. Groan…

And last week I had to go visit one applicant. You see, my company provides FREE aid to scientists who want to sell their inventions. By free aid, I mean consultancy AND mean money. Not five minutes through the meeting, the applicant got so agitated that he began to bang on the table to deliver his points (what point?). Not enough with the shouting and the table banging, he must throw a book at me. I swear. Throw a book at me! This in front of all the other professors in a meeting discussing the possibility of my company giving them free aid. I repeat, us giving them free aid. But I am not The Chosen One for just being able to break plastic spoons! I ducked and escaped the bullets fired at me like a good neo.

And this morning, on the way to work I had another near-death experience as well.

As usual, the train was very crowded. So crowded, faces are plastered to the windows and walls. So crowded the train bloated. Get the picture? I saw a very pregnant lady being crushed among the sardines. Everytime the train moved, she winced as her stomach got somewhat pressed. I could barely move, but craning my neck I saw sitting on the nearest seat to her was this non-needy (to my judgement) Malay lady. Sitting next to her was a Chinese girl with so many bags on her laps and around her feet as well and she was sleeping. And so, I patted the Malay lady’s knee and said politely with my best darlie smile, can you please give up your seat for this pregnant lady? Pretty please?

Oh how she scowled! And then she scolded me! She started on some racial thing, why am I asking a Malay to stand when I could have asked a Chinese? Why do I respect them so much and not my fellow Malays? Huh? And she said I should have asked someone younger to stand. Not her. I said, well, never mind the race and the age, you are nearest and looking at you, you look young. So if you are not as young as I thought you were, take it as a compliment. You see, it was 8 o’clock on a Friday morning and I was still smiling. But noooooo, she wasn’t through with me yet! I am 60 years old, she announced. And then she started about me having attitude problems yadda yadda yadda. And she mumbled and swore and cursed all the way and there I was standing right infront of her wondering what was her excuse for HER attitude problem. I know I have excuse, I am young. Grinnnn…

And last Sunday I had the most terrible of tonsillitis. Swallowing was so painful. And I had raging fever and all that. I took the medicines and felt okay again after a few days. But today, I feel it coming back again. The throat and the headache. So I have been sick as a dog twice this month!

And have I told you also the letter I received from JPA? Yes, they DO remember me after all! They sent a letter asking me to pay up the entire study loan I took during my degree those donkey years ago. To this, I am giving no excuse. I know I should have paid earlier. No excuse. Anyhoo, JPA wanted me to pay the whole amount before the month ends OR ELSE. And Yamtuan received the same letter too. And so between the two of us, from one household, we had to pay close to RM8,000!! Now that was big money to us! Caused this HUGE hole in our small burning pockets. Adoi!

And it occurs to me today that 1st March is 1st Safar and as usual, Safar delivers the ‘annual’ tests for me. Always. The month I am always reminded to remember the purpose and the reasons of my being. I am ashamed to admit that I always forget and I can be careless too. So Safar to me has always been a good but painful jolt to the system. Humbled!

I guess in a way, life is like college years. You have your classes, core subjects and extra curricular activities. You have the pop quizzes and the carry marks. And then you have the exam and final final exam. Your final accumulative points will tell the kind of degree you will be awarded with. Good grades, good manners you’ll get good jobs and after-college-life will be good. Bad grades and bad manners, oh-well, cant jolly well expect much can you?

And if life throws a book at you, duck.


10th Safar 2006.